Sketches of Physics

Roberta Citro is Professor of theoretical matter physics at the Department of Physics of the University of Salerno (Italy). In recent years she has matured professional experience in many-body techniques of low-dimensional systems and in quantum transport in nanostructures. She has recently established a new research team/activity on quantum transport in low dimensional systems. She completed her PhD in Physics at the University of Salerno (Italy) in 1998 defending a thesis on high-temperature superconductors. After her graduation, she was, first, a Post Doc Fulbright fellow at the Physics Department of Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA) where she collaborated with the Condensed Matter theory group, completing original works on the puzzling phase diagram of coupled spin chains by means of bosonizations and renormalization group methods. In 2007 she was a Marie Curie fellow under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme-Mobility Action at the Laboratoire de Physique et Modélisation des Milieux Condensés (LPMMC, CNRS) in Grenoble (FR) where she collaborated with Dr. Anna Minguzzi and Prof. Frank Hekking. Here, she acquired knowledge in the field of atomic and molecular systems, working on the problem of non-equilibrium dynamics of a Bose gas subjected to a time-dependent perturbation. She has an active synergetic activity (Member of the organizing committees of five international conferences on quantum gases and a national meeting in superconductivity, member of the Doctorate collegium, referee of the APS and IOP Journals, of Nature and of national/EU research projects).
Maciej Lewenstein is ICREA Research Professor and leads the quantum optics theory group at ICFO (the Institute of Photonic Sciences) in Castelldefels - Barcelona, Catalonia. He graduated at Warsaw University in 1978 and joined the Centre for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, where he remained for 15 years, becoming a professor in 1993. He finished his PhD in Essen in 1983 and habilitated in 1986 in Warsaw. He has spent several long term visits at the University of Essen in Germany, at Harvard University with Roy J. Glauber (Nobel 2005), at the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre (CEA) near Paris, and at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado. He was on faculty of Centre CEA in Saclay during the period 1995-1998, and of Leibniz University in Hannover over the period 1998-2005. In 2005 he moved to Catalonia. His research interests include quantum optics, quantum physics, quantum information, attosecond science, and statistical physics. His other passion is jazz and avant-garde music and is an acclaimed jazz writer and critic.
Angel Rubio is the Director of the Theory Department of the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter and distinguished research scientist at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute (NY, USA). His research interests are rooted to the modeling and theory of electronic and structural properties of condensed matter as well as to the development of new theoretical tools to investigate the electronic response of materials and molecules and to characterize and predict new non equilibrium states of matter. He is acknowledged as pioneer and leader in the area of computational materials physics and one of the founders of modern theoretical spectroscopy. In the last years he has pioneered the development of the theoretical framework of quantum electrodynamical density functional theory (QEDFT) that enables the ab-initio modeling of strong light-matter interaction phenomena in materials, nanostructures and molecules.

Wolfgang P. Schleich is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Director of the Institute of Quantum Physics at Ulm University, Germany. From 1980 to 1984, he did his diploma thesis and his Ph.D. under the guidance ofMarlan O. Scully at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, with an intermediate research visit (1982/83) at the Institute of Modern Optics, Albuquerque, USA. From 1984 to 1986 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with John Archibald Wheeler at the Center for Theoretical Physics in Austin, Texas, USA, and then as a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, under Herbert Walther. In 1991, he moved to his current position at Ulm University. He is author of several books, including Quantum Optics in Phase Space and Elements of Quantum Information. His areas of research include theoretical quantum optics, physics of cold atoms and analogies to solid state physics, fundamental questions of quantum mechanics, general relativity, number theory, statistical physics and non-linear dynamics. Some of his most important scientific achievements are related to the role of quantum phase space in quantum optics, for which he has received numerous nationaland international awards, most recently the Herbert Walther Award of the German Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.

James D. Wells is Professor of physics at the University of Michigan (USA). As theoretical physicist his research explores ideas designed to solve outstanding "origins" problems in fundamental physics: the origin of gauge symmetries, dark matter, flavor violations, CP violation, and mass. Professor Wells is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of an Outstanding Junior Investigator (OJI) Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, and a Sloan Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Gary P. Zank received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Natal in South Africa in 1987. Gary is an Eminent Scholar and Distinguished Professor, Director of Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR), and Chair of the Department of Space Science (SPA) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Gary has been recognized in his field through the receipt of numerous honors and awards throughout his career. In 2017, he was named the University of Alabama Board of Trustees Trustee Professor, the first and only University of Alabama System faculty member to achieve this position. In part, this was in recognition of Dr Zank being elected in 2016 as a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the only person in AL to be a member of this august body. He was recognized internationally in 2015 with the AOGS Axford Medal, the highest honor given by the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS). Other awards include his being a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2017, he was also elected an AOGS Honorary Member and was chosen by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) to be the 2017 Johannes Geiss Fellow. One of hispublications has been recognized as one of the twelve "classic papers" ever published in the Journal of Plasma Physics. Gary is dedicated to his research, which is clearly represented in his achievements over the years and categorizes him as a cutting-edge leader in the world of space physics.